


Residency

by monimala



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Female Doctor (Doctor Who), Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:32:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her 13th regeneration, the Doctor comes looking for a familiar face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Residency

She watches the whip of his long, dark military coat around his calves with new eyes. She watches _everything_ with new eyes now. And not that she didn’t appreciate a good bum before, but it’s different this time. The awareness sends a tingle down the back of her neck, into places that are still getting used to curves and hollows where there once were lines. She’s only been a “her” for a scant handful of days, and the regeneration still has her vibrating with energy. With power. With need.

And if there’s one person in this lousy universe who understands the weight of nearly a thousand years of need, it’s the man who’s never quite welcome but always makes a gorgeous exit.

Will he know her on sight? He has before. Whether she’s got a beak of a nose or is whip-thin and hyperactive, he’s felt the Otherness of her. Just as she knows it of him.

“Jack Harkness.” She calls for him, before he can wander too far into the mists. “Fancy a lift?”

He stops. His hand automatically hovers at his hip. Good boy, she thinks. And when he turns to face her, his pistol is in his hand, swiftly coming up to level with her chest. Her quite _impressive_ chest, which was a shock indeed. “Where? And from whom?”

The words are short, clipped, suspicious. Not the terribly flirtatious halloo-ing of the man from the Blitz. But then, she’s not Rose. Not that lovely, youthful blonde who charmed the world just by _being_.

She ignores the pangs of memory, the faces that follow Rose’s in quick succession. Martha, Donna, those delightful Pond-Williamses. She can’t remember them all now. She can’t mourn. She has things to do, places to go. New skin to live in.

“Don’t you know?” This, too, is a pang. Because, on some innate level, she did expect instant recall. Ridiculous, really, since he hasn’t seen her in three incarnations. Perhaps he’s forgotten it all entirely, her brash, bastard, fixed point in time.

“Is this a test?” Jack moves closer. The weapon in his hand wavers just slightly. It’s old fashioned for this century, this planet. But it fits his coat and the bleak look in his eyes. “If you’re an old girlfriend, I promise, it really _was_ me and not you.”

The laugh that burst out of her surprises them both. “Old girlfriend? Not for lack of trying. On your part, that is.” There are millions of things she doesn’t dare recall. A million broken hearts and lost lives. But the exuberant, cheeky press of his mouth on hers comes easily. It’s a benign flicker in the grand scheme of horrors that are her existence.

Perhaps it’s that way for him, too. Because _now_ comes the recognition. His sharp intake of breath. The old-fashioned gun tilting, barrel down, towards the sponge-y earth. “Doctor?”

One word. One simple word.

It’s not until she exhales that she understands she’s needed to hear it in order to process it. To believe it. To connect the name to the severe face and the steel-gray hair and the legs that stretch for days. _Yes._ “Yes, I _am_ the Doctor.”

When she reaches out, he takes her hand.

The TARDIS is waiting. Breathing. Ready.

 So is she.


End file.
